Thou Shalt Not (36 page)

“Really?” Landry said, unable to hide his excitement. “That’d be so boss.”

“You got it.”

With that, Landry practically skipped to Stephanie’s classroom.

Marco was smiling a very self-satisfied smile. The guy had a certain charm about him, I had to say. It was a little slimy and creepy, but it was still there.

“Well, I’ll leave you two alone,” I said. “I’ve got a lot to get ready before the kids show up. It was nice to meet you.”

I nodded toward him and started walking to my classroom.

It was rare that I spent much time lingering in the hallway, and even more rare that I paid attention to what was on the walls. But it dawned on me then that keeping watch over the hallway was a painting of Moses with his Ten Commandments. All the
Thou Shalt Nots
hovered over me, with
Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery
screaming the loudest.

Been there, done that.

“What about you?” Marco called out.

I turned.

“Excuse me?”

“What about you?” he asked again. His eyes were very wide, and I noticed then that I hadn’t seen him blink yet.

I shrugged my shoulders.

“What about me?”

“Do you want me to sign a baseball for you too? You can pick it up from April whenever you’d like.”

There was something in his words that clued me into the fact that he seemed to be clued in.

“Sure,” I said, hoping I sounded as excited out loud as I was trying to sound in my head. “I’d love one.”

“Good,” he said, nodding smugly.

“Thanks,” I said, turning and walking toward the classroom.

His eyes followed me, I was sure of it. I could feel them searing holes into my back.

I didn’t feel relief of any kind until I was in my classroom. I stood as close to the door as I could without being seen. Or being able to see, for that matter. They hadn’t seemed to move from the hallway, and I was hoping to hear what they would say to each other.

There were voices, but they were muffled and impossible to decipher. I didn’t move, though. I thought that maybe if I stood there long enough I would be able to catch a whole sentence or two clearly.

It reminded me a little of trying to catch a glimpse of boob or something even more graphic while watching scrambled porn as a teenager. You always hoped you’d get like thirty seconds of clarity, but it never came.

I could have stood at the door the rest of the day and not had a clue what they were talking about. Instead, I stood there for what seemed like the entire day, but in actuality it was only probably three minutes.

As I stood there, contemplating whether or not to walk to my desk out of a stupid fear that he might hear my footsteps and know I’d been eavesdropping on them, the door opened.

I jumped back, my heart stopped, and for at least three seconds I probably could have been declared legally dead.

April walked in, alone.

“Oh my god,” I said. “You scared me.”

She looked a little shaken.

“Where is he?” I asked.

She looked behind her, instinctively, like she was expecting him to follow her in.

“He went to get Landry’s baseball. And yours.”

“Did he say what he is doing here?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “He said it was a surprise.”

“What the hell is his surprise?”

“How should I know, Luke?”

April probably needed to get over to her classroom before her husband got back with the baseballs. Unless baseball was a code word for shotgun.

My brain does that. I couldn’t help it.

Here I was, needing to call things off with her once again, and something or someone was getting in the way once more.

“Well, keep me posted,” I said quietly, for reasons God only knew.

April looked frustrated and a little flustered, but she gave me a quick nod and left.

It was a few minutes before I heard the door open to April’s room, and because there weren’t any other sounds in the building, I could tell they were talking. But, once again, I couldn’t make the words out.

I decided to walk over to Stephanie’s classroom, because I wanted to get a glimpse into April’s room while I walked by.

I didn’t know what I expected to see, but I knew I’d be more comfortable knowing he wasn’t strangling her or anything. Violence had to be on the back of anyone’s mind while Marco was around. Thankfully, he didn’t smell of booze though, so this wasn’t going to turn into drunken rage.

It was funny the things people will do when they think they are going to get caught doing something. I had been whispering to April even though Marco was in the parking lot. I had been trying to stand as silently as possible while I listened by the door, worried the slightest flinch would get me found out. And now, as I left my room and walked toward Stephanie’s, I found myself practically tiptoeing. Because, apparently seeing a man tiptoeing in his own goddamn hallway isn’t suspicious at all.

I casually turned my head as I walked by April’s room, glancing through the window that a few weeks ago had first exposed me to April in the first place.

God, so much had happened in such a short period of time since then.

I saw April sitting at her desk. It didn’t look like she was talking to anyone; her head was down and she was shuffling through papers.

The window wasn’t big enough to see the rest of the room unless I was going to walk up to the door and put my face right up to it.

I continued walking and reached my faux destination.

The lights were out, and when I reached down to open the door, I realized it was locked. I knew Landry had gone in there—the lights had been on and the door had obviously been unlocked.

I peered into the dark room through the window on the door, but saw empty desks slightly illuminated by the light of the hallway.

I guess the tutoring session had been a quick one.

I briefly debated walking the length of the hallway and then going back to my classroom, but I turned around instead.

The door to April’s room opened up, and out came Marco.

I stopped in my tracks, and so did he. I think we were both just briefly startled to see someone else in the hallway, but if anyone else had come across us, they would have thought we were engaged in some kind of Western standoff.

“Can you point me in the direction of the men’s room?” Marco asked. “Too much coffee on the plane.”

“Right there,” I said, pointing behind him to the bathroom that was conveniently located to the right of my classroom.

“Ah, gracias,” he said. And off he went.

The bell rang and the morning quickly got underway. I wasn’t texting April and she wasn’t texting me, so whatever was going on next door was a mystery to me. I had no idea if Marco was sticking around the school for the day, or if he had left, but I wasn’t going to risk asking her. So I waited.

When lunch rolled around, there was no sign of April in her classroom or in the lunchroom. I assumed they went to lunch.

When lunch was over, I went back up to my classroom and found April sitting on the death couch.

“Where’s Marco?” I asked.

“We went to lunch. He just dropped me off.”

I nodded and sat down at my desk, turning my chair toward her. The goddamn Bic was sitting on my desk, but I didn’t react to it like I normally did.

“He says he came to be a part of my welcome dinner,” she said, breaking the momentary silence. “That he wanted to meet all the great people I’d be working with.”

Ah, the New Teacher Potluck, welcoming April to the faculty. Some much had been going on that I forgot it was coming up.

“Do you believe him?”

“I don’t know,” she said, leaning forward on the couch. She covered her face with her hands, and then ran them back through her hair. “Something just doesn’t feel right.”

“Like he knows something?” I asked.

“Like he knows something,” she said. “He mentioned you at lunch.”

“Oh god, what did he say?”

“Just kept saying you seemed like a nice guy. I told him you played baseball most of your life and that caught his interest even more.”

“Did you tell him the whole story?”

“No,” she shook her head. “I didn’t exactly want him knowing I knew your life story after a few weeks.”

“That would make things fairly obvious.”

“Exactly.”

The bell rang, and the kids would be on their way back from lunch.

April stood up and straightened her dress out with her hands.

“Don’t text me until I figure out what’s going on,” she said. “We can talk here unless you hear from me.”

I nodded in agreement. “Okay.”

Although, knowing me, even if I got a text from her saying “It’s okay to text right now,” I probably would have ignored it, thinking it was a text actually sent by Marco to trick me into giving away information.

When I say I think of every possible scenario, I absolutely mean it.

The rest of the day went by without event. Holly and I texted back and forth most of the afternoon. It took a little while to get back into our groove, but eventually we got there and she spent most of the time ranting about her brother. I knew she loved him and felt like a mom, so her rants were more funny than anything else. Holly would do anything for family, or for someone she cared about. The moments she allowed herself to bitch about them only made her more lovable.

We made plans to meet up and see a movie later. She said she needed to get out of the house, and I seemed to be going to a restaurant every other night and was tired of eating out so much.

The movie theater was fairly empty, which I expected for a Wednesday night. Holly and I never picked a movie before we went to the theater. It was our tradition to just pick a time to go and then we would see the next open showing, no matter what the movie was. The only exception was if we had already seen the movie. It was a fun little tradition, but it also forced us to see some real clunkers. Once or twice I had tried to get out of the movie we were going to have to see and convince her to see something else, but she always reminded me it was my idea in the first place and to shut up and watch the movie.

We were in luck, though. The movie playing next was a foreign film about soldiers forced to celebrate Christmas on the battlefield during World War II. I had heard good things about it, and Holly wasn’t at all opposed to subtitles, which was a giant plus in her category.

The theater was empty, as apparently foreign movies about war weren’t popular in the middle of the week. Naturally, my thoughts went to all the things we could do in an empty theater, but I wasn’t all that sure if Holly would be up for it. She wasn’t opposed to public fooling around though, as she had once given me a blowjob in this same theater complex. That had been in the very beginning.

“So, I’ve got a slight problem,” I said, as we sat down in our seats. The commercials hadn’t even started as we still had twenty-five minutes before show time.

“Oh boy,” she said, introducing her large Coke to the sticky cup-holder armrest. “What is it?”

We had discussed the April situation during the day through text, in between Holly’s ranting about her brother. I had told her that April’s husband had shown up at the school, and that it had made things pretty uncomfortable for a little while.

Holly said, “Sucks to be you guys, but you deserve it.”

I expected nothing less from her.

I also explained that because of that, I hadn’t yet had the opportunity to end things officially with April. This bothered her a little, which was completely understandable. But, I promised her it would be done.

“Well, tomorrow night we have a potluck at the principal’s house,” I said.

“Are you allergic to potlucks or something?”

“No. But, the potluck is for her—a sort of ‘welcome to the faculty family’ kind of thing.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. And as her co-worker and the person in the class right next to her, I kind of have to be there.”

“Well, you said her husband is in town, so if he was there it’s not like I’d have to worry about you fucking her in the garage. Would I?”

She could be so blunt and sarcastic at times, it was a little disarming.

“No, Holly, you would not have to worry about that. But, I really want you to go with me.”

“You do?”

I could hear the surprise in her voice. I had never asked her to do anything with me of that sort. I doubted anyone at my work had ever seen her. That is, unless they frequented the bar on the weekend, but I knew them well enough to know they didn’t know who Holly was. To her credit, she had never brought it up, or asked why I hadn’t really included her in work things. But, that was going to change.

“Yes. I do. I want you with me.”

“Fine,” she said, trying to conceal a smile. “I’ll go.”

“Good.”

She turned to me and grabbed my face, planting a big kiss on my lips.

“Asshole,” she said.

The lights dimmed and the commercials and previews began. An older couple walked in and sat a few rows in front of us.

“Do you remember when you gave me head in this theater?” I asked, a little too loudly.

“Yes, and now so do our viewing buddies,” she said, gesturing her head toward the couple. “But, you aren’t getting that tonight.”

“I was just being nostalgic,” I said.

I grabbed her hand in mine and leaned as far back as my chair would go.

She didn’t pull her hand away.

“You’re such a charmer.”